His bond with me was that I was a recent graduate of the Foreign Service School, at least fairly well acquainted with situations throughout the world. And he would take great pride in his ability to mention not only the leader of a country, but five or six subordinates in that country who held positions of prominence. He took great pride in talking to a passing officer coming in or out of the radar center, and in a most interested manner, ask him what he thought of a given situation, listen to that officer's explanation, and say, "Thank you very much."
As soon as we were alone again, he would say, "Do you agree with that?"
In many cases it was obvious that the officer had no more idea about that than he did about the polo races—or polo matches in Australia.
And Oswald would then say, "Now, if men like that are leading us, there is something wrong—when I obviously have more intelligence and more knowledge than that man."
And I think his grave misunderstanding that I tried to help him with is that these men were Marine officers and supposed to be schooled in the field of warfare as the Marine Corps knows it, and not as international political analysts. And in some respects he was probably better informed than most people in the Marine Corps, namely, on international affairs.
Mr. Ely. Do you remember any specific international events or situations which he questioned officers about?
Mr. Donovan. No; not particularly.
I know that Cuba interested him more than most other situations. He was fairly well informed about Mr. Batista. He referred to atrocities in general, not in particular. I think that we all know that there were injustices committed under the Batista administration. And he was against that. And he was against this sort of dictatorship.
But I never heard him in any way, shape or form confess that he was a Communist, or that he ever thought about being a Communist.
Mr. Ely. Did you hear him express sympathy for Castro specifically?